Overall, 51 studies that met all criteria were identified from 524 results (Fig. 1.). Articles that met the search criteria were published between 1986 and 2022. Half of the publications (25 studies) were published between 1986–2012 [5, 7, 18, 21, 22, 26,27,28, 30, 31, 38, 39, 49, 50, 54, 55, 59, 60, 63, 64, 66,67,68, 73, 77] and half (26 studies) between 2013–2022 [4, 29, 32, 35,36,37, 40, 44, 46,47,48, 51, 53, 61, 62, 65, 69, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 103,104,105]. The relationship between anxiety or fear was investigated from different perspectives. The most commonly reported topics were related to personality characteristics (e.g. anxiety traits and personality types) and psychiatric diagnoses and symptoms (phobias, panic disorder etc.). There were four epidemiologic studies [27, 28, 65, 67] identified in these areas as well as one meta-analysis [37], and two systematic reviews [4, 78]. However, the relationship between migraine and sensitivity to anxiety and the relatively new concepts of cogniphobia, kinesiophobia and cephalalgiaphobia have not been studied sufficiently [68, 69, 72,73,74,75, 77, 80]. The overview of studies is summarised in Table 1. We have divided the studies into the following topic areas: Comorbidity and prevalence of migraine and anxiety disorders [4, 7, 18, 21, 22, 26,27,28,29,30,31,32, 35, 65,66,67, 78, 79], Fear of pain and avoidance behavior in migraine [5, 36,37,38,39,40, 44], Migraine, personality traits/disorders associated with anxiety and fear [45, 53,54,55, 60,61,62,63,64], Migraine and Anxiety sensitivity [46,47,48,49,50,51], Migraine and Phobias: Cephalalgiaphobia, [68, 69, 80] Cogniphobia and Kinesiophobia [72,73,74,75, 77]. Included studies are presented in Table 1.

Flow diagram: Process of selected studies

Pain has a protective character, it protects the individual from danger, it is normal for people to be afraid or afraid of pain. A phobia is an irrational and disproportionate fear of an object, activity, or situation that is not normally dangerous. Psychiatric disorders are comorbid with migraine including anxiety disorders [21, 78, 79]. According to observational studies, anxiety disorders occur in 20–75% of people with migraine [22]. Rates are higher in clinic populations relative to population samples and rates increase with higher headache day frequency and higher average headache pain intensity, suggesting a connection between anxiety disorders and chronic states [7,